Who she was
by SnowySilver
Summary: A one-shot concerning Kagome, based on the last part of Miroku's first episode, and attempting to explain the absence of her father in the show. Spoilers for Miroku's episode, but otherwise no specific setting.


Title: Who She Was  
  
Author: SnowySilver (but you can call me Snowy)  
  
Summary: A one-shot concerning Kagome, based on the last part of Miroku's first episode, and attempting to explain the absence of her father in the show. Spoilers for Miroku's episode, but otherwise no specific setting.  
  
Disclaimer: Roses are red, violets are blue, I don't own Inuyasha, and (unless you're Rumiko Takahashi, in which case I bow down in awe) neither do you!  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
She hadn't always been a Higurashi.  
  
Before everything, a long time ago, she'd been a Tomiyama. Back when it was just the two of them, just Daddy and her. Back during the good times. He'd been teaching her what he knew, how to do what he did, and she'd been helping him. She was too young, he'd say sometimes, too young to be so good at it. But he was proud of her, she always knew.  
  
Then SHE came. Ai. She was nice, and smiled all the time, and made her oden. She was around Daddy a lot, but that was okay. They got along well, and it was only later she learned she was supposed to hate her for taking Daddy away. So she had tried, for about a day and a half, but she just couldn't do it. It was like they were made to be mother and daughter.  
  
The first time she saw the shrine, Daddy had taken them. He said it was where Ai lived. She'd gone skipping around the grounds, and found herself in front of the well-house. She'd walked in, carefully, then squealed and ran out, slamming the door, when she thought she'd heard a noise.  
  
She had run back to Daddy, but stopped, unsure, when she saw him and Ai doing that kissy thing again. Then an old man, a man who she would come to know as Grandpa, ran out and started whacking Daddy with a broom, yelling that he was a no-good dirty pickpocket who didn't deserve Ai. She'd run to try and help, but Daddy had started laughing. And so, still unsure, she had, too.  
  
Then Ai had come to live with them, and for a while things had been perfect. She kept helping Daddy, and he kept teaching her, and life was good. Sometimes Ai said she shouldn't be doing it, that she was too young and Daddy shouldn't teach her, and even once that Daddy shouldn't do it either, but she never pushed it. Ai saw Daddy like she did: the good, nice man who was the center of her world.  
  
Those were the good times.  
  
And then was the best of it all. Daddy told her Ai - Mama now - was going to bring her a little brother or sister. She remembered running to Mama and asking her to please make it a sister, and Mama had laughed and said she wasn't the one who decided these things. Then, a long time later, Mama went away with a big beach ball belly and came home with a normal one and a little baby in her arms. It was a boy, and she didn't like that at first, but he was cute, and when he opened her eyes and looked at her she stopped being sad. She loved him, loved them all; Daddy, Mama, her, and the baby. It was perfect.  
  
Then the bad time came.  
  
That was when Daddy got taken away, and Mama started crying a lot. They moved to that shrine Daddy had taken her to, and the old man called himself her grandpa and said she was a Higurashi now, to always remember that and never to call herself Tomiyama again. Mama told her to forget the things Daddy had taught her, forget how to do what Grandpa had told her was called "stealing" and was wrong, and she couldn't think how it was bad, since she'd done it for as long as she could remember, but Grandpa was very, very old and knew a lot of things, so how could he not be right? And Mama had told her to forget, and though it was the hardest thing she'd ever done in her short life, she tried. She was sad then, during those new and scary times; nothing was good anymore. Everything was different, and she didn't like it, not one bit.  
  
But the baby was crying a lot, and Mama was pretending not to be sad, so she did too. She didn't argue about going to the new school, and made friends with a group of so-happy-it-was-scary girls, and pretended. It was like a game. She made believe she was okay about the move, and about Daddy being taken away. She pretended, and made Mama and Grandpa believe it. Eventually, she realized, it became true. She'd put that part of her life behind her, pushed away the effect Daddy had made on her. She never stopped loving him, but she stopped remembering the things he taught her, and stopped doing them, like Mama had told her to. The time spent with her father faded into the distance, no more than a whimsical memory or wondrous dream.  
  
Sometimes, though, she still felt the pull of his influence on her. Those first few days on the other side of the well, for instance; she was sure his teaching her to always be calm was what had kept her sane. It was probably the only thing that let her be brave, during the battles she'd fought. Yet still, she ignored that part of her, pretended that it didn't matter, almost - but not quite - that it didn't exist.  
  
But there were times, like when she'd had to steal back her Jewel shard from the monk, times when she was completely sure of herself, of who she was. Those were the times when she remembered:  
  
She hadn't always been a Higurashi.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Written: 3/9/04  
  
Posted: 3/25/04  
  
Edited and Re-posted: 4/29/04  
  
A/N: Shows just how lazy I am, huh? Haha. So, what did you think? I got this idea as I was watching Miroku's first episode for the first time (too cheap to buy the DVDs, so I have to settle for the Cartoon Network stuff and I slept through that one the first two times), except of course it was about four in the morning and I didn't realize I had that idea. But then, on the bus, it wouldn't get out of my head, so I wrote it, mostly during Social Studies (in my defense, we seriously weren't doing anything!). It's from that part where Kagome just got her shard back and Miroku says, "How'd you do that?" This is just a bit of an edit for it, since there was some weird problem when I first posted it.  
  
Reviews would DEFINITELY be appreciated! I need all the help I can get!! 


End file.
